Granted
by Rivulet027
Summary: Bobby takes a hot shower. No pairings. Warning: major angst with suicidal thoughts.


Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with X-men, it's Marvel's toy box. I'm merely playing. I'll put everything away when I'm done, promise.

Note: The Emma quote is from Uncanny 318, her words just struck me as something that would stick with Bobby despite all that's happend after. The Hank and Opal situations I mention are from the Bobby icons. If I had to place this piece I'd say somewhere around 427, it's been playing in the back of my head for a while. This is a slightly heavier angst with suicidal thoughts, hence the rating. There are no pairings. Reviews and flames are welcome.

Bobby:

One of the greatest flaws people have is that they take things for granted. Don't believe me?

Well okay take warmth for example. What do you do when you're cold? You turn up your heater, you start a fire in the fireplace or you bundle yourself under a big fluffy comforter and get all toasty warm. You don't really think about it, you don't spend hours contemplating it because you usually are warm, right? Well not if you're me. If you're me, your pretty much cold 24/7 and use to it. Cold for me is normal.

What's not normal for me is feeling like a total useless nothing that's merely taking up space at the mansion. Sure, I have my moments where I can be an idiot, who doesn't, but that's usually me trying to be funny guy. I don't usually have a problem with the occasional stupid moment.

So what I don't get is how my you-will-now-be-depressed button got pushed. I mean I figured with all the time Jono 'I must brood' Starsmore spent hanging around the mansion our team angst quota would be filled for awhile. No such luck. Alex woke up from his coma, Lorna went psychotic, the Prof is letting just anyone be an X-man and to make things far worse a bunch of student got crucified on our front lawn! One of them died! They were strung up there by a religious group and the whole irony of the thing is that a kid raised in a religious background, a kid wearing a crucifix while they were crucifying him was the one who died. Which is just so beyond wrong and I don't just mean that Angelo died, I mean that it happened at all. We save the world, we even welcome former ememies into our mist and if your a former student you have to worry about being crucified? I... 

So th-that should be the gist of the angst right? Well lets add onto that I've got a second mutation and that I'm also feeling useless, as though my presence only drags down the team.

I mean, I know I'm being petty, but I use to be somebody. I use to be one of the few people in the world who had a mutant 'gift', now the Professor says that there are tons of them out there. Being a mutant is no longer rare. The X-men use to be just Scott, Warren, Hank and me. Then it was Scott, Warren, Jean, Hank and me. Now it's Scott, Jean, Warren, Hank, Paige, Logan, Kurt, Storm, Bishop, Kitty, Jubilee, Sam, The White Queen, Xorn, Juggernaut, Alex, Lorna, Jean-Paul and...well you get the idea. The list goes on and on and on. Am I high in importance on this list? No. Am I high in accomplishments on this list? No. Am I high in popularity? Probably not.

So how do I react to all this? By being an ice-cold jerk to everyone. It's no wonder Jean-Paul hates me, I've been especially cold to him. Can you blame me though? I mean he's roughly what a year or so older then me, he's accomplished so much and he struts around here with that damn cocky I'm-always-right attitude of his. Isn't that enough to drive anyone in their right mind over the edge? I mean give me a break.

The thing is I've realize I can never go back to being special. Emma was right when she told me, "...you're a pathetic little loser whose never bothered to push himself."

I remember everything about that moment. I remember that way she looked at me. I remember the contempt in her tone. Hell I even remember the way the grass smell mixed with the smell of her perfume. Sad really, with everything I've been through that that should be one of my most vivid memories. She partly said it to drive me crazy, partly to get me to push myself. I've realize though that it doesn't matter what I do I'll always be a loser. This doesn't bother me so much, really I mean it. It's like my being cold, I got use to it. It well became normal for me.

Yea, um...

I-I have this distant memory of being warm. When you think about it, it does make sense that I should obsess about warmth when my whole body is changing to ice and I can't change back. At first not being affect by the cold was a novelty, nearly exhilarating. Now being cold is just a way of life. I can't remember the last time I really felt warm and could just enjoy it. I want to, I want to be warm.

So what's my brilliant plan for getting warm? Simple, take a hot shower, which is something I haven't done since I was young. Usually I only take cold showers.

Being that I've been here so long I'm one of the few people that has their own private bathroom. That should make me feel special, right? Not really- it's a cramped shower, a toilet and a sink-would that make you feel special? Probably not. I decided to use the guy's shower room and very early in the morning. I don't mean just early, I mean unnaturally early. If I screw this up somehow I don't want to look like an idiot in front of everybody, I've had enough of that lately.

So I go in and no I don't lock the door. Think about it, this is a community shower-I lock the door and the first person to run across the locked door gets a bunch of concerned people to unlock it. Thanks, but no. I want some privacy on this field trip to one of my more insane ideas.

So basically I'm in the bathroom and I strip down to my boxers. I put everything I was wearing in a pile next to the stall I plan to use. Yes I'm going to put on the clothes I was wearing before the shower on after the shower. I plan to wear them for the short walk down the hall to my room where I will change into whatever I decide to sleep in. Come on it's not really all that gross.

So yea-I'm um in nothing but my boxers standing on a cold tile floor. If I were a normal person the cold under my feet would bother me, but I'm not normal and the cold doesn't bother me, I barely even notice it. I go over to a mirror and inspect my chest, which is scary. Usually when I 'ice-up' you can see right through me. Hell back in the beginning of all of this Angel would make Invisible Woman references just to annoy me. Now you can see my intensities, my stomach and part of my lungs. I hope I don't come out of this second mutation thing looking like that student where you can see all his insides. His name's Hector, I think. His is a mutation I would wish on no one, least of all myself. I really hope I don't look like him when my body's done freezing.

I touch my chest experimentally and my fingers sotra stick. I'm touching ice, I don't know if I expected anything else. I sigh and pull my hand away.

I go to the shower and maybe its a sign that I shouldn't do this when it won't turn on. Still I'm doing this, I'm taking this shower. I want to feel warm. So I move to another stall. This one works, I know I check first. I put my things in-my shampoo, my washcloth and my soap- then I take off my boxers. Yes, I'm completely naked now. Feel free to ogle me and tell me how sexy I am, it might do something for my self-esteem.

I turn on the cold water and step in.

After I finish my shower part of my shower I take a few deep breaths and half heartily talk myself out of this. Just joking...I am doing this, but that doesn't mean I don't try to talk myself out of it. Knowing my luck something is going to go wrong

I step back and turn down the cold water. Then I slowly turn on the hot water. Experimentally I touch the spray with my fingers. Nothing, nadda, doesn't do a thing for me. I turn up the heat a bit more and wait. Soon the bathroom is steamed up and I can feel the heat from the shower rolling towards me.

I remember bumping into someone a few days ago and the shock as their warm skin momentarily touched mine. My arm felt slightly burned, but in a shockingly good way.

I take a few deep breaths and turn my back to the water. Carefully I dip my head back and nearly cry out in shock as all that heat gets gently pounded down onto my head. Water runs out of my hair and drips down my shoulders. Most of the water makes its way down my back and even less runs down my chest. I step back into the spray in a way that the water mostly runs only down my back. The difference of the warmth on my back and the cold of my front makes my teeth chatter. I give myself a moment to adjust by moving my back around and rolling my shoulders. Water trickles down my chest and there's suddenly more steam in the stall. I step full under the spray and ohmygod-heat...warmth. I'd forgotten how good this was. I really really needed this. My thoughts are nearly incoherent for a moment, this is such a refreshing shock. I'm struck dumb for a moment.

Gradually I come out of my stupor and slowly realize that there are three different kinds of warmth making paths down my chest: there is the warmth of the water, there is some of the ice on my chest slowly melting and something else that I can't place. I look down.

I had thought before I did this that part of my chest might melt. I figured more ice would take its place. I was wrong. Apparently this ice on my chest is like an outer layer of skin, with one exception -it can melt. I realize this as I stare down at my feet and watch slightly inky red water swirl down the drain. I have small rivers of blood running down my front. It numbs me and I stare.

I could take this shower and bleed to death.

I could die right here and now.

Part of me wants to.

Who would miss me?

Okay, Hank would. The last time I went out on my own without telling anyone first Hank nearly had kittens. Still we don't talk as much lately, he hardly seems to notice I'm around anymore.

Why couldn't Opal have been there when I went to tell her I'd stay in Hong Kong. Why couldn't we have raised 'our' son? I don't care that he wasn't biologically mine. I don't even think that it's physically possible for me to have kids-there is this whole body temperature thing that I just don't have. I want a family. Most guys my own age are really just starting to do the nine to five thing and the whole family gig. Why...why can't I have that?

I want to die.

I could.

It's be so simple.

I'd actually get to be warm in death.

I touch my chest which is sticky and cool.

My hand comes away red.

What am I thinking?

In panic I slam off the water and ice up. Somewhere in the back of my brain I realize that in my panic I've used too much power and the whole room is probably at least covered in a thin layer of ice. I sway and sink to my knees. The ice under my knees is a pale reddish color. I collapse onto my side and curl into a ball as I try to slow my breathing.

I just...I just need a moment to calm down.

I'll give myself a minute to calm down, then I'll get up. I'll de-ice the room. Then I'll go to my room and stay there till I'm okay with this.

S'okay. I'm okay. I just need a minute. Nobodies going to walk in on my laying in an iced up pool of my own blood. Even with three telapaths in the mansion nobodies going to know about this. I know this, I'm just one of those things people take for granted.


End file.
